


Mouvement

by Kount_Xero



Series: Untouchable [3]
Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Depression, Depressive, Echoes, F/M, Road Trip, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-25 22:21:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kount_Xero/pseuds/Kount_Xero
Summary: Scott and Rogue on the road to Academy of Tomorrow, trying to cross the distance between who they were and who they are going to become.





	1. The Flesh is Weak

She slept. As it was said in that song, she didn’t mean to do it that way. 

* * *

The rest of the night was a blur that bled out and coated the morning as well. She remembered brief snapshots. Waking up to him panicking about his visor. Briefest of contacts when he slipped it on, telling her of the Gordian knot of thoughts in his head - each thread a snake, coiled up, entangled and ready to unravel, to choke him.

The force of his repression, setting each thought aside. For later, always for later.

He thought he’d have time to fall apart, someday. Just not today, not now.

Not while she was around. 

* * *

Breakfast. Strange colors in the diner. The red of the faux-wood table. The shiny chrome of the fixtures.

The red of his eyes and the faint shadow of his stubble.

Black. Coffee. Not helping, not giving her anything.

Blue. Sky.

White of the waitress’ apron. Like a butcher or a maniacal surgeon ready to cut into their lives with an order. A mother, a miracle worker. A sustenance-giver.

Kaleidoscope of insanity, rising to choke her in a flash of impossible hues.

Sharp gray giggle.

His hand on her forehead, baby blue, beautiful, needed. Checking for a fever.

The colors of grey. 

* * *

Black.

Sleep. 

* * *

Her consciousness came and went along the road. She experienced small snippets, each one marked distinctively by the amount of natural light presen, and the general feel of her surroundings. Every once in a while, her brain reminded her that the position she was in was particularly hard on a given set of blood vessels, so she shifted, changed position and tried to hold onto her consciousness.

She failed. Every time. Because every time she opened her eyes, it would be there. Despair. Pure and unfiltered by any thoughts of hope his presence would bring, could bring.

Him.

The sweet reality of him in the driver’s seat, guiding them through the unknown, unfelt road. She didn’t even feel that the road existed. The world had ended, yes, and they were the only ones that had made it through. They were all alone. Together.

The feeling of the back of his seat underneath her bare palm. The miniscule bumps of the pores on the leather against skin.

Warmth from knowing that he was there.

Sleep, pleasant in those times when she reached out.

Eased into solitude with the knowing of him. 

* * *

She only saw the no-dream. A black, limitless, featureless dark of the in-between consciousness. Her body aware that she was lying on the back seat, coat draped over her body to protect her from the cold. A pillow, bought from a roadside convenience store under her head, two duffel bags at the footrest making her bed larger. Her feet, cold because she couldn't sleep with shoes on. The folds of the coat, soft in her grip. The belt around her waist and the jeans on her lower body.

The no-road, flowing beneath. Like a river, silent and allowing them passage. The no-world surrounding her and the familiar scent of his skin, so distant, barely finding its way through.

Yet, no consciousness. No way to understand it, to turn this surge of input into something malleable. So she just laid there, letting the world assault her senses while keeping her mind away from the surface. The surface of the no-dream, like the sea, atop which was her breathing space.

But she was too busy drowning, too busy sinking. No time to swim. 

* * *

His voice often pierced into the abysmal depths of her broken consciousness. He talked to her often, telling her of irrelevant things, random anecdotes about this, that and the other. Stories. She listened earnestly, unable to react due to her partial paralysis and drank every single sentence as if her life depended on it.

Inside, she felt that it did.

She even responded sometimes, when she felt strong enough to speak. Rolled a thousand lies on her tongue, hiding her truths for when she actually would have the courage to withstand their impact. Felt her tongue burn with all she hid and felt dragged closer to the edge with each response.

He just liked to speak to her. She liked having him speak. She didn’t have any words to give.

And the echoes in her head, hundreds of voices as one, shrieking a noise at each word coming out of his mouth. Scrutinizing it, commenting on it, taking it out of context, mixing and matching with their own experience. Taryn’s nails, Kitty’s mom, Kurt’s tormentors, Mystique’s lovers, Jean’s dates, Sam’s sister, Jamie’s puberty, Logan’s no-past, Eric’s tattoo, Amanda’s blue, Duncan’s body, Fred’s mirrors, Todd’s insecurity, love, sex, blood, pain, ache, family, water, sun, earth, death, Kentucky, Chicago, the bleachers, Bayville, Savage Land, Africa, Asteroid M, Bayou... went on and on and on and on, endlessly.

It overwhelmed her into the no-dream.

* * *

She woke up to movement too strong to ignore. He, with her flats in one hand and her coat in the other, lifted her off of the back seat and started carrying her. She instinctively flung her arms around his neck, taking care not to make actual skin contact and pulled herself closer. The echoes receded when he was this close. Fell into an expectant silence. One touch, just one, nothing more.

Somewhere in her head, someone was singing, _“Why can’t I get just one kiss? Why can't I get just one kiss?"_

“Scott..?” she managed to mumble.

“We’ve done enough for the day.”

“Where... are we?”

“I don’t even know at this point. ‘bout halfway to Chicago, I think.”

“We were kinda near...”

“You need to sleep somewhere other than a back seat.” He said, “So do I.”

A tiny vibration. His cell phone going off.

“Lemme down, Ah can walk...” she said.

“I don’t need to get that. It’s probably Jean.”

Silence. He didn’t say anything. She understood.

* * *

The brief, frantic transition between the motel room door and then... the bed. Relief. He set her down, took her coat and folded it and placed it on the spare chair by the window. She looked at him, at his distance. He might not have noticed, but it was very much a part of him, this transparency. He was thinking about something and Rogue wasn’t supposed to know of it. So he just went all rigid; normal, natural movements becoming more forced and restricted, as if he was doing everything with weights tied to each joint.

She noticed, even through the haze of her half-consciousness.

“I’ll take a shower.” He announced. He placed his cell phone on the bed stand, “It’s on silent, so it shouldn’t be any problem. Do you need anything?”

Rogue glared at him, her mind having difficulty comprehending the expression. Need? Did she need anything?

Did she?

“Nah. Nothin’. Ah think Ah need,” _you, you as a whole, you in yourself, you as much of you can give, as much as you think you can spare _“some rest. Ah know it sounds like a bitch thing ta say, but Ah’m tired.”

“It’s normal.” His entire body made this motion, as if he was about to step forward, but the invisible wall he had put up stopped him. Rogue knew the motion. Meant he needed to say or do something, that he felt he shouldn’t say or do.

For the briefest of moments, she hoped against hope. It passed, as it always did.

“Sleep, Rogue. I’m here. You’re safe.”

She slept. She heard him turn on the water. Shivered.

* * *

She woke up in the middle of the night, like she had before, with his arm draped over her. She panicked. The more she laid there, the more conscious she became and the more she panicked. It wasn’t anything unusual, Cyke often did that to Jean but she never had experienced something like it since the survival camp. Maybe she could phase through and... no. Wait.

Kitty’s thoughts.

Scott’s touch was still there.

Rogue turned and pushed him away. He groaned, turned around and continued sleeping soundly. She sat there, knees to her chest, shivering.

Panic, abject, abstract. There was nothing wrong, yet she couldn’t stop herself. Somewhere inside her, the knowledge she had gained just two nights ago stirred inside, slithered closer.

She could scream.

Cupped both hands on her mouth to keep herself from it. He was too tired, too busy working carrying two people across the road.

Where exactly were they even going, anyway?

She remembered something about Chicago, but her mind was too clouded to discern whether that was truth or some piece of abstracted echo-dream making way to be the truth.

She glanced out the window. Dark, but she wasn't sleepy. Her visits to the infirmary in the mansion and recurrent walks down Charles Xavier’s secrets had left her nocturnal, it seemed. She felt stronger than on the road, more aware than in the diners, more alive, more _awake._

She got up. The carpet, rough and textured. Welcomed the sensation and moved to the bathroom. There, in the mirror, she saw a tired mess. Hair in tangled, separate strands, dark circles around her eyes, make-up from God knew how long ago clinging to her skin. Her pale, sickly skin.

She felt absolutely filthy. The coat of dust on her skin, she could feel the miniscule particles clogging her pores. She felt sweat and unchanged clothes, the coating of road salt on her.

She closed the door and locked it. She needed to get clean. 

* * *

The water, trailing down with cleansing, purifying streams across her bare skin felt wonderful. Blissful. She felt her muscles relax and knots inside her unravel. The cleaner she got, the better she felt.

Like a crooked string correcting itself, ready to be strummed again.

All knots undone, except for one and she knew just how to unravel that one. As her hands slid across her body, enjoying the feeling for as long as she could make it last, she felt her weariness bearing down on whatever stolen, perverted bliss she needed to find, whatever need she needed to feed. Her body was caught in a riptide, wanting it and too tired to acquire it.

The echoes were eerily silent, as if expecting her to ignore her body’s demands and just get on with it.

Rogue shivered. Bit her lower lip.

Whether she was tired or needy, both cases just proved to her the one thing Logan-by-Rogue kept telling her all this time. The flesh was weak.

She smiled, not minding any of it. He was strong enough for the both of them; and she, despite bending, hadn’t been broken yet.

Another touch and another delicious shiver.

If this was weakness, she was glad to be weak.


	2. With Mouthfuls of Blood

She woke up. She didn’t mean to be awake when it happened.

* * *

The subtle sound of his frustrated sigh pulled her out of the limitless depths and sensory isolation of the no-dream. She felt herself pulled towards her body, if only for an instant, as if she had been drowning below and was now carried up by the water. She felt the lack of covers on her. The sheets were somewhere else.

Immediately, she had a protestation that it was still summer and luckily, Kentucky wouldn’t start getting cold until much la... no. Cannonball’s thoughts, whimsical.

Before she could even have a basic distinction between herself and who Cannonball was, she heard him speak, a barely-restrained whisper hissing through clenched teeth.

“Jean, quit running my fucking battery down. Stop calling.”

At the mention of the name, full awareness came rushing to her. It was almost like a physical impact. It shook her. Her limbs sprang, her arm jumping quite visibly.

Close your eyes and feint asleep, Kurt’s voice gently said to her, it works every time.

So she did.

She felt Scott leaning over her, to check. Rogue heard the briefest snippet from the other end of the line. She tensed up, praying with all the strength she could muster that it wasn’t visible.

_“Please, Scott, I just wanna talk... Scott?”_

_Please don’t let him see, please don’t let him see, please don’t let him see..._

“Shut up.” He whispered, “Wait, I gotta get out of the room. Because she’s sleeping and I don’t want to wake her up to this.”

* * *

She pretended until he was out. The devil prodded her then, telling her to fake a turn and get as close to the window as possible. She should hear this, the devil said.

She agreed, but refused to admit it. Through a crack in the door, she could hear him speaking. 

“What? What is it that you wanna hear? That yeah, I’ll go back to the institute? That I’ll patch things up with fucking Xavier?”

Response-time. Part of her imagined the response. The other part of her chided that part.

“No. No. No-shut up, I’m talking now... Jean, shut up and lis- will you jus- no I’m not being unreasonable, you won’t let me t- alright, I’m hanging up. Yeah, hanging up. No, fuck this - either listen, either fucking listen, or don’t fucking call. No, you’re not talking _to _me, you’re talking _at_ me, there’s a difference. You willing to listen? Are you willing to listen?”

Silence. Response-time.

“Fine, I’ll tell you what it is – don’t fucking call me. There’s nothing to say. Charles Xavier used me, used Rogue, used you and God knows who else for a guinea pig and you’re still trying to tell me I’m being unreasonable. You like the guy too much to see what danger he poses. That’s fine by me, no sweat off my back – but don’t expect me to be anywhere near the son of a bitch, nor to bring Rogue near him. If it were up to m...”

Rogue could hear the response in her head, and knew which route Jean would take.

“Fuck you." Scott snarled, making Rogue jump, "Y’know, when you were all over Matthews, I didn’t fucking treat you like this!” brief pause, Rogue shivered at the anger in his voice, “Yeah, I chose to take it out on him, because I had issues with the way he treated you, not the way you liked being treated! Liked, yes, liked, ‘cause... what? What do you mean how can I say that, why else, listen, why else would you fucking date the guy if you didn’t like being with him? Oh, it was complicated, well none of it matters now, Jean. Whatever it was, whatever it all was, you, me, fucking Dunc the Lunk, whatever, it doesn’t matter now. No. No it doesn’t. No it doesn’t. What? Oh, you’re gonna talk now? What are you going to say that you haven’t already said?”

Silence. Rogue couldn’t help but feel ashamed. She was knowingly eavesdropping on something that Scott apparently would rather she didn’t hear. But there she was, absorbing every word.

Part of her reminded that this was what the Rogue did, after all.

Her shame only amplified as if he, upon noticing it, would come in and tell her everything she just didn’t want to hear.

He would, too. He had never shirked from it, in fact, he seemed to take pride in the fact that his tongue could deal more damage than his eyes ever could. It happened everytime and Rogue, the little bitch, she knew, god damn it, she always knew – it was because Scott’s little pet project couldn’t keep her hands off of him, and when... no. Wait.

The gleaming, sharp focus of Jean’s thoughts, slicing through her every doubt with horrible, almost primal jealousy.

Rogue started shaking, uncontrollable panic rising within her.

He would turn, look through the window and then he would know. He would know she wasn’t sleeping, he would know she was snooping, he would know, he would...

She cupped both hands on her mouth to keep herself from screaming.

Outside, Scott was speaking, oblivious.

“Oh, _please._ Do you even believe that? Do you for one second, honestly believe what you just said? Oh, you do, huh? This is where, as they say, we reach a disagreement. As in, I don’t support experimentation on mutants just to reap some fringe benefits. Yeah, you heard me, don’t pretend that you didn’t. Fuck you. No, fuck you. Fuck you! You heard me.” Brief pause. Rogue could almost hear a gun being cocked back, “Oh, you wanted it cleared up? Here’s as clear as I can fucking make it: don’t fucking call me.” First shot, “I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want you, at any capacity, at any time, at any place.” Clip half empty, “I want the institute and you out of my life. This isn’t some mean streak that’ll go away, it’s not some phase, it’s not some rough patch we’re going through, it’s not some tantrum that I’ll regret ten minutes later, which I am sure was under your influence...” brief pause, “This is the truth: we are through. Deal with it. Stop it with this.”

He choked. Rogue’s eyes widened in shock.

A sob.

“Stop it.” He said, “Stop it, Jean, I mean it. Stop it. Leave me the fuck alone, why do you always... I don’t need your help. I don’t want your fucking pity, just stay away from me, why can’t you just let me be? I don’t... no, that’s not what I said. Just... leave me alone, alright? No. I don’t want... no. Just leave me the _fuck _alone!”

The sound of the phone smashing against the ground made Rogue jump.

She felt tears biting into her eyes. She curled up and, unable to stop, cried, sobbing into her own palms. 

* * *

Scott was out there for what seemed to Rogue like centuries. She could hear him muttering to himself, no doubt replying to an approximation of Jean. His effigy to burn and mutilate. Jean-by-Scott. And Rogue, in her distress, couldn’t do anything but lie there and weep.

After a while, she felt that she couldn’t breathe. With her nose completely blocked and knives in her eyes, she sat up, barely balancing the world. It always felt like that after a fight, thought Scott wou... no. Jean, still. Insistent. Driven.

Too much.

Rogue went into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She looked around, frantic in her search, for something, anything.

Jean’s thoughts, focused, focusing... details, the crack on the wall, slight incline to the left, very regular for a regular one, not a fault line but a paint job error... no. Too much detail.

Rogue bit into her fist to keep herself from screaming. Her teeth sank in, one canine even managing to puncture skin and draw blood. Her mouth filled with the traces of that sweet, sweet taste.

He had cut his hand on the carving knife, trying to clean the fish. Clean cut right across his index finger. It bled like hell. She remembered licking it up, in attempt to playfully take his mind away from the blood; he didn’t like it. It was something inherently red, to him it might as well have not existed.

But that wasn’t her. That was Jean.

_Find the line,_ she told herself,_ the dividing line between you and the echoes. Find the line._

Nothing around.

The mirror. Yes, visual aid, added sensory grounding. Ground herself in reality, yes, that might work. She smiled, anticipating the reflection.

Her breath got stuck in her throat.

The reflection in the mirror, save for two white branches at the very front, had red hair.

Rogue screamed and broke her face. 

* * *

Pain of the broken mirror, the small pieces of glass sticking to her knuckles. Blood, more of it, on the sink, around it, on the floor, everywhere.

Red.

She sank to her knees, looking at the reflection cast by each broken piece with renewed panic.

Chestnut hair and her white streaks. Chestnut hair and her white streaks. No red. No red but... that of her own?

In the pieces, she saw other faces slowly emerge from her own; each shard distorted her face, slightly, until it was her face, only not. Each echo made their own reflections known, in her as well as out, as if they had been made into extensions of her.

In the center of the debris left of her fragmenting mind, on her knees. Looking at the shadows cast on the mirrors, shadows that belonged to her but were foreign to her.

She could name each one and relive, in its entirety, the defining moments of their lives; the tipping points that had shaped them into what they were when she had touched them. And time and again had she experienced, through them, things she had never experienced as the Rogue, as the thief, the taker.

That was what she saw in each reflection. How she had taken what was theirs and should have been theirs alone.

Jean-by-Rogue, present, and taking over three different shards, laughed.

Oh, was that it? Theirs alone?

Did the little Rogue know how much some people wanted their innermost thoughts to be known, begging for others to be made aware of their perversions, their deviance, but were too afraid to say anything? How about all the times when those she had touched would have given anything, anything at all just to be able to make a connection and say all the right things?

Or when they just wanted to be understood?

And who was she to give this to them and never give them the satisfaction of actually acknowledging or choosing this connection? What gave her the right?

_Stop it... Jean... please..._

Oh, no you don’t, you little thief.

Shard underneath her fingers, cold.

More sensory input. More grounding. She needed more.

_I can’t..._

Oh, a goth cutter. How original. I thought Scott had better taste.

_Shut up, Jean._

Delicately picked it up, feeling for a good grip that wouldn’t slice her entire hand open.

_I need more, _she thought, _need to feel more, need to... need to do this. Need it._

* * *

Pain.

Delicious, real and hers alone, dripping onto the white tiles of the bathroom, each droplet spreading across twice its own size. She felt herself release her breath and with that breath, she released the overbearing presence of Jean-by-Rogue. Her mind awash in tides of that adrenaline clarity, she noticed that her breathing was heavier. She laid on her back, cold tiles against her skin, feeling the pain shoot across her arm and then spread out.

She licked her lips in profound pleasure.

Tasty.

She sat back up, shards of the mirrors looking back at her. Reflecting her and her alone. She smiled. She felt absolutely giddy, as if all the things that had brought her to that moment had simply evaporated. Lightheaded, she floated.

Knock on the door. Probably Scott.

“Rogue? You in there?”

Yes. She was in there. She dug in again. She drew more red. More red to wash it away. She was drifting, but was in there for sure.

“Rogue?”

Knock on the door. Forceful. Insistent.

“Rogue, answer me! Hey! You there!? Oh fuck me, _fuck_ me!”

Silence. No knocking. No Scott.

Not that it mattered.

Red on white and shiny, reflective glass looking back at her. The phrase, “licking wounds” came to mind. She decided to do just that. More input.

Another chain on her anchor.

She was thirsty. 

* * *

Caught up in the moment, she didn’t notice the door behind her being blown to splinters until a stray one actually dug into her arm. Taking her lips off of her wounds and with half-seeing eyes, turned around.

Scott.

“Rogue, what...” his eyes met the shards on the floor and then trailed onto the red, “What the hell...”

Rogue hung her head, averting her eyes. She didn’t want him to see this.

“What’re you doing? What the fuck are you doing?”

What _was _she doing?

“This is... fuck me, what...”

Rogue saw the dance of emotions on his face: shock to sorrow to pity to anger. The emotion radiated off of him in waves, he was furious. He crouched, teeth clenched. He grabbed hold of her arms and pulled her to her feet. Rogue lost all sense of direction as he pressed her against the nearest wall, lifted up her arm (from her elbow, from over the cloth, that goddamn cloth) for her to see.

Jagged lines, irregular, red and still bleeding. Bright red on pale, white skin, the marks left by the glass too raw, to visceral for her to handle. She looked away.

Scott took a deep breath and released it in frustration. Rogue closed her eyes, hoping not to come face-to-face with him when she opened them. She knew she couldn’t. He left her and she, afraid to open her eyes, hugged the wall.

His hand returned on her injured arm, covered by a towel to avoid skin contact, a moment before a searing pain bit into her wounds, sending shockwaves into and through the cuts. Rogue whimpered.

“Why would you do something like this I...”

She had no words to offer.

“Listen, I’m not made of steel, okay?” he said, gently patting on the wounds with what Rogue made out through the scent was something soaked in alcohol, “I’m not. I can’t stand everything, I can’t do everything. I’m just as breakable, as made of glass as you, as anyone else. And I’m trying, I really am. I’m trying to find a way, ‘cause there is a way, there always is, and I’m trying to find it.”

She was listening, as she always did.

“What is it? What is it that you’re not telling me?” he asked, “I keep talking, I keep _babbling _and you’re just... absent. I get shock, I get it, believe you me but this...”

She could almost feel his eyes looking at her, scrutinizing her face as he always did for clues.

“I know it’s barely been two days, but... now this, I...”

She couldn’t take it.

She just leaned forward, flung her arms around his neck and pulled him in. She wanted him to know, wanted to whisper to him, speak, shout, touch, kiss and tell him all the things she couldn’t tell herself, tell anyone. Tell him for real this time, not in some half-remembered, half-felt dream.

Tell him everything.

He was rigid, unresponsive. Rogue feared the worst, that she, tongue-tied as she was, would never be able to tell him and he would never know.

Then, she felt him embrace her. She relaxed to the feeling of him, the feeling of another this close.

They didn’t speak. There’d be time for it.

* * *

She withdrew after what seemed to her to be a very calm eternity and sat down on the bed. He sat next to her, and she, in her most callous and most insincere, offered him her wounded arm.

Without a word, he took her arm again and continued to tend to her wounds as she watched.


	3. The Smoke of Her Burning

He did the best he could. Said he always meant to bring bandages and other things, but had completely forgotten about them until after she was injured. 

* * *

“What time is it?” she asked as he was wrapping a bandana he had found in her stuff around her arm.

“It’s...” he glanced at his wrist watch, “...two PM. Why?”

“Ah don’t think this is the best time... forget Ah said anythin...”

“No. Tell me.”

“Fuck, are you as hungry as Ah am?”

He looked at her, one eyebrow slightly raised. For a second or two, his head refused to register what she had just said. She _would_ be hungry, he guessed; between the insomnia and hypersomnia, the road and the blood loss and her night in the bathroom. He, too, was famished. He knew the symptoms: apparent lack of hunger, mindless excitement, giddiness, a distinctive awareness of his surroundings to the point where he perceived each and every miniscule detail without any filtering. Running on automatic. He knew that soon, it would translate into exhaustion, unless he fueled it and kept going.

But it seemed so trivial, so meaninglessly little compared to all the other wolves circling around in his head, that he couldn’t help but chuckle. Another chuckle followed, then another, until he found himself laughing his nerves off.

He was aware of her watching, unable to comprehend. She probably was too busy chiding herself for thinking about food, but why not? Why not, indeed?

He found that the mad rush of the past two days had come to a standstill, and now, there was only the tedious progression of one item on their must-do list to the next.

He felt so tired.

So, why not?

“Yeah...” he said, smiling at her, “I’m starving. You think there are any decent places nearby?”

“We can try...”

“Sure. Let’s go.”

* * *

The truck stop was one of those anonymous, dime-a-thousand places one found along a road. Scott had gotten used to the general feel of it. The sharp edges, the rigidly-angled roof and the scent of gasoline. Glass, aluminum-compound shutters and round, fat edges of metal-infused plastic. Ageless, timeless and always, always that same feel. Same road salt, same fatigue that only registered the gravel and the crunching steps across it. The scent of coffee and the taste of pancakes against faux-porcelain cups.

The diner had that warm, used feel. Tang of metal on the scent of fresh coffee, eggs and maple syrup. Cheap carpeting at the entrance ending in checkered, laminate floors. Warm orange, shiny chrome, solid red against the bright blue of waitress uniforms and the pure white of their sneakers.

The one by the entrance, a lady with the name-tag Margaret who wore horn-rimmed glasses and appeared to be wired on oil-slick coffee, asked if it would be a table for two after sizing both of them up. Scott glanced to the side, clocking three, three-quarters circle booths by the window. He pointed towards the one in the middle. It was perfect. In the space between the entrance and them, there were five tables: two on either side, one by the booth to the left, two right between all three booths.

He loved the angles. Made him think that, if they could sit there, they’d be safe. At least safe enough.

“That booth, please.” he said.

“Red glasses... What’re they made of?”

“Special glass.” He lied, “Got an eye condition.”

“Oh?”

Scott saw that the lady wanted an answer. Rogue went rigid beside him, tensed up, ready to strike. He knew her well enough to know she was anticipating the worst. Well, this was her lucky day.

“It’s like color-blindness," he said, "except my eyes can only see red without getting hurt. Something about not being able to process other colors in the spectrum.”

The lady feigned interest, but it was apparent that she was buying into his half-baked excuse. Scott had concealed weapons in the form of actual medical jargon if she got particularly frisky.

“Alright, follow me.” she said.

“Thanks.” 

* * *

They sat down, and after a while, a very nice, light red-haired (Rogue said she was a blonde, but he couldn’t tell) waitress who looked very, very irritated by their mere presence took their order. Scott took the liberty of ordering for them, steak for both, with mashed potatoes, vegetables, some sausages on the side. Enough protein and carbohydrates for them to feed their daily need in one stroke. Relatively cheap, too. Not that money was that much of an issue now.

Dessert, later. Chocolate had some decent amount of serotonin in it and he intended to make Rogue eat some. He ordered coffee, black, while they waited. The first cup came with a mandatory announcement of a free refill policy, with which he couldn’t find a single thing wrong.

* * *

Coffee. The almighty conversation generator. It tasted like coffee in all these places. Always the same. Same cheek-clenching, harshly-textured taste lingering in his mouth before swallowing it down, feeling it leave a dry aftertaste.

“So...” Rogue said, “How long until we reach the... ya know...”

“Academy of Tomorrow? I think a solid, 12-hour drive, maybe more.”

“Ya don’t have ta do it by yourself... Ah got a license, Ah can take over.”

“No offense, but you’re in no shape to drive. It’s okay. I can do it.”

“Scott, it’s... it’s too much. You’ve done ‘nuff already.”

“I would like to do more.” He said.

He wasn’t sure if she could tell what he was actually saying. She had a knack for it, which, he suspected, was also because he had touched her enough times for her to know him better than anyone ever had or ever would.

Brief reminder of that particular statement. Too soon.

He wanted to do more, not just for her. For himself, as well. For others. For those who needed help, for those lost in the dark, too scared or weak to move. To help them.

* * *

They ate. Scott babbled in attempt to grab her attention. Went over the news in the mutant world. Richard Kelly, their principal’s senator brother, was pushing for a Mutant Registration Act and was quite loud in wanting to enforce it, should the motion even pass. Mutants, it seemed, was the prevalent question in the forefront.

That didn’t seem to spark interest. He thought about telling her about the call and what had happened.

He found that he’d rather just shut the fuck up and eat.

* * *

Waiting for dessert, he focused on her.

Looking at her fiddle with the small cloth difference between the interior of her gloves and the exterior, he could only see a smoldering ruin. The smoke of her burning apparent in her disheveled hair, in her bleak, dead eyes. In the nervous tic of playing with her supposed ‘nails’, a gesture originally belonging to Kitty. The way she brushed a stray strand, sectioning off part of her hair just short of her stripe; just like Jean. The way she held the cup, Logan. The way she licked her lips clean after each sip, Ororo.

How she waited for coffee to lose some of its burning heat, just like Bobby.

He saw all the fragments, all the small pieces clinging to her, smothering her. Saw her tremble underneath the distant exterior. Saw her broken before him. Shoulders hunched, posture weak, eyes downcast. Defeated.

He knew what he should have said, so, as he had always done, as he had always made a point of doing, he reached out and took her hand, eliciting that same, startled response he had always found in her. A pure piece of her, untouched by her echoes.

“I’m here, okay?" he said, "We may not have made it very far, but we came as far as we have.”

“Ya don’t have to keep all of it in.” she said, looking away. Huh.

“What?”

“Ah heard ya. On the phone.” She said, “Ah didn’t mean... Ah just... woke up.”

“Guess I was shouting loud enough, huh? Sorry.”

“Why do ya do that?” she asked, “Why do ya apologize? It’s your issue, it’s your life, Scott! What do ya have to be sorry for?”

She leaned forward, elbows on the table.

“You’ve been there for me more’n anyone else ever has. Ah don’ even _know _nobody willin ta touch me like you are. Kitty was mah roommate, _she _always avoided comin near me whenever she could. ‘sides you an’ that shady Cajun rat, ain’t nobody, and Ah mean nobody makes that contact. Ya know how rare that makes it?”

Scott stayed silent, hoping to provoke her more.

“Ah mean...” Rogue stared outside the window. Doubtless, looking for something to fixate onto that wasn’t him, “Ah was ready to accept that Ah’d never, ever connect with anyone. Talk to anyone, be with anyone. That’s not even the surface of what it is, that ain’t even close to the tip of the iceberg. That’s trivial now. All bullshit. Small stuff.”

Tears. Scott clocked Janet approaching and gently rose a hand to prevent her from getting close. An obligatory “how is everything, is everything okay” would cause her to clam up. It was easier to just let her cry it all out than to try and get to this state of defenselessness with her. Janet took the cue and backed off.

Rogue's guard had always been somewhat lowered when he was around, especially with the two of them together, but he had never had any illusions about it. She had always been guarded but this – at her most vulnerable, most honest... this was something new.

“Ah was always...” she said, “Always a tool for people ta use. Prof, Mystique, Apocalypse, that Cajun... it doesn’t matter who it is, they all just... use me. It might be mah powers, mah skills, whatever, they do and Ah don’t notice it. You... Ah touched you enough times to know you. Know you like Ah know mahself and... ya don’t wanna use me...”

He couldn’t help it.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

Rogue looked at him, just for a second and then looked away. In that second he understood, without words, what she wanted to say and noticed his way of saying, here’s looking at you, kid, wasn’t the case. 

She was trying to tell him: _I peeked into your mind. I know your motivations, the ones you don’t really perceive consciously._

_I stole this knowledge from you._

_I know your intimate secrets. I know the things that keep you up at night._

_I know what you never told a soul._

_I know what you can’t admit to yourself._

_I know everything._


	4. Soleil et Noir

He did the best he could. Said he had always meant everything he had said, even the lies and even the angry words he regretted.

* * *

The dessert he ordered was something known as a Brownie Grenade. It just came down to a rather elliptical brownie soaked in fudge, chocolate and caramel sauce, topped off with vanilla ice cream. Janet didn’t say a word as she placed two sets of spoons on the table next to the plate. Scott, seeing that Rogue was not about to, thanked her and then stared at the dark red brownie swimming in dark red stuff under all that light red ice cream.

“Wow.” He said, “That’s a grenade alright and there’s no pin.”

A blank looked crossed her face. Then, a mischevious grin, the likes of which he was used to seeing on a fur that everyone had told him was blue.

Another blank look where she shook her head and pressed her lips together. Scott didn’t have to even look to know what was coming next.

Her eyes, which he knew to be emerald green, telling him: I know you.

She dug right in with more appetite and enthusiasm than he could ever have hoped for. He joined her with a smile. It was a pleasure seeing her eat. He guessed that it was her lack of human contact that made her go harder on other senses. She read like mad, listened to music all the time, experienced the world in smells and, as a sight he actually enjoyed seeing, enjoyed her food.

Was that it, he wondered? Was that part of what Jean had tried to tell him? That his affection for her might have been something more, some sort of messiah complex evolved from his abnormally high EQ?

But even that seemed ridiculously detailed. Rogue was, in that shy, nice-and-proper demeanor, displaying a barely-restrained urge to just wolf it down. It was very much like her.

Scott just watched her eat and smiled between bites of sugar overload. 

* * *

After she was done, she sighed and leaned back. He immediately lost the smile. Not the time. If she noticed, she’d only clam up and he couldn’t afford that. Not now. Not when she gave him something to fixate on other than the pieces of a cell phone lying in front of some anonymous motel room.

“Thank you...” she said, “For everything."

He didn’t say anything.

“You’ve only ever done right by me and Ah don’t even know why Ah deserved it. Don’t know _if_ Ah deserve it...”

“_That’s_ why.”

“Ah don’t get it.”

“It’s when you don’t know if you deserve something as simple as an act of kindness, when you know you can do better, be better... it’s when you don’t ask for it. You know how they say kindness isn’t taken, but is bestowed upon you? That’s when it’s... bestowed, I guess.”

She allowed the ghost of a smile, but he knew her to be capable of so much more. But he left it at that.

“And believe me, kindness is something we all need. Not two-faced scheming, or grand visions and long-reaching goals over others. Just simple things, small things. Like this,” he held her gloved hand, “Doesn’t hurt me, doesn’t hurt you.”

“Ya don’t know the half of it...” she said, “Ya don’t know how much Ah need this.” She squeezed his hand, “Ya don’t know.”

“I don’t. I just know on some level that you need it.”

“Ah’m sorry.” She said, biting into her lower lip, “Mah needs, whatever they are, Ah don’t even know anymore... kinda took over and Ah forgot... how are you holdin up?”

He stared at her blankly, thankful that the glasses concealed his eyes but very aware of his jaw sort of hanging low.

How was he holding up, really?

He was about to speak when Janet, wearing that dissatisfied face, came back around to ask them the obligatory question of whether they wanted anything else, tab slip in her hand and waiting to be put on the table. Scott calmly asked for two glasses of water and smiled his polite smile.

“How am I holding up?” he said.

She nodded. Concern, familiar and very, very real, in her eyes.

“I’m as shocked as you are. For the longest time, Xavier had made a believer out of me. I believed in his vision, his dream of actually integrating us into society. Believed in him, really. Trusted him. He was the first one to help me after... you know. He gave me my eyes back. He gave me so much and yet, I can’t help but feel that on some level, he did what he did because he felt guilty about what he was doing behind our backs.”

He took a sip. The water was cold, and quite obviously not from a bottle. It wet his throat, made him more eager to go on.

“As for Jean... it just never really happened, me and her. You know how you are with someone, but you’re really not? Like you’re just hanging out and you want to believe there’s something more, only there isn’t? It was always like that. I always wanted to believe and maybe for a while, there was something, we had something. But no. I can’t. It’s not just that she sticks up for Xavier, not that at all. One similarity too many: we are both control freaks, and it doesn’t sit well. I don’t know.” He sighed. Looked out the window. A pickup, dark red, carrying two tired-looking guys who appeared to be straight out of one of those trucker flicks, “I just don’t know.”

One glance at Rogue and her listening reminded him why there were there now. He chuckled, unable to restrain himself. Exhaustion, the absurdity of it all, the mental load of discovering his idolized father-figure was in fact no different than his lifelong friend Magneto, Rogue’s psychoses, Jean’s control issues, everything came bubbling to the surface and he started to laugh. The more he did, the more concerned Rogue’s expression became.

It seemed so... ridiculous. There he was in some random diner off the road, tired beyond belief and all wired up on coffee, having a discussion about why he couldn’t make it work with a girlfriend with another girl who probably had more to think about than bullshit affairs and, to top all of it off, he had a twelve-hour drive ahead of him towards a college that he wasn’t even sure was going to let them in. 

The fact that after the status quo was fucked up beyond any and all recognition, he was pontificating on the most insignificant of details belonging to the fucking up of it.

He settled, and, smiling widely, looked at her. She looked absolutely lost.

“It just seems so... stupid now." he said, "Like it never mattered, that we all just pretended it did because we had nothing else to obsess about.”

“It was your life, Scott. Ah can’t...” she trailed off.

It was his turn to look concerned.

“What? Tell me.”

“Ah can’t help but feel that somehow Ah took it away from you. Everything. Every single little thing and Ah took it.”

The way she rose two fingers to her temple. Jean.

“Ah never had much of a home, really. No parents in Mississippi. Ah don’t know what happened to ‘em, they just wasn’t there. Mah auntie took me in for a while. She was one o’them, ya know, like,” slight slur on the l, just like Kitty, “ruler on the wrist. Bounds ta overstep. Thank you, ma’am. And Ah ran away a few times, the good folks of Caldecott jus’ kept bringin’ me back. That’s how Ah got mah name, too. _There’s your little Rogue_, _Ms..._” it was on the tip of her tongue, yet she lost it. Scott saw her face contort, if only momentarily. She swallowed it down, pushing her awareness to the side and continued, “Anyway. Then Irene came... don’t know what she did, exactly. She jus’ talked ta mah Auntie for a while, not too long, but when it was over she just... gave me up. Ah remember her face, though, when I saw her last. She looked relieved.”

Nothing in the world could tear him away from listening, yet she looked at him for a moment, as if unsure he was there, as if she was afraid he’d be gone.

“...Anyway. Never had a proper home, really. Irene was cool an’ all, but the rest... all that shit Ah... Ah never really had... oh, Ah don’t know. So Ah’m used ta this, to all’a this. Ah just know that if you’re not travelin light, sooner or later ya miss somethin, like you remember somethin important and wanna go back, Ah just... don’t know if you had a chance to make sure. Make sure ya got everythin ya know you’re gonna need.”

Scott smiled.

“Don’t worry.” He said, “I have what I need.”

It might not have been much, but it was enough.

* * *

They returned to the motel to get whatever they had actually put in the room, put it back on the car and returned to the road. Rogue sat up front this time and far as he could tell from stolen glances out of his peripheral vision, she was lost in the road flowing by them. The hills and mountainous rises surrounded them and the ambient, nondescript scenery around the car engulfed them as they moved, sieving through the world and into the one he hoped to make.

He didn’t speak and she didn’t ask him to. He found that what he had always been more comfortable with, silence, was still as nice as he remembered. In the institute, he never got this sort of peace, not really. With Jean constantly projecting emotions and thoughts, Kurt teleporting all over the place just to avoid walking there and who knew what else, he rarely found time for himself.

Jean. He couldn’t keep his thoughts from circling around her, so he gave in. Might as well let it happen, because there seemed to be no way around it. What was it about her that he had so adored at one time, her helplessness? Was it really true, what she had said? Did the ends really have to justify the means?

That was just it.

His clarity of vision returned, clearing away all other burdens bearing down on his thought process. It tired him out further, the relief of it. That was just it: he just couldn’t take Rogue being that helpless, nor Jean. No matter the cause, no matter the actual aim in causing it, nobody should have had to suffer it.

Oh, he knew what it was like, alright. Hugging the corner of the wall that he had found after crawling in the snow, holding onto the stone like nothing else existed. Pure darkness, above, below, around, each sound, each wind-chime a predator, a monster coming to get him.

Screaming for someone, anyone, to come help.

He knew what it felt like when nobody came and didn’t want her to feel that. The fact that Rogue had risked her own life during Jean’s power surge made it even worse. That was what Jean couldn’t understand.

Somewhere deep down, he knew that he wanted to believe it was that cut and dry. Simple and easy to deal with. Too short, too black-and-white, too insincere.

Nothing he could do now.

He then remembered. Something he had meant to do.

“Rogue, you got a cell phone?”

It took some time and some fumbling around in the car, but she managed to locate her small and archaic flip phone. Scott flipped it open, and, keeping one eye on the road, entered the number. He held it to his ear, knowing he should not have, not with them on the road, but didn’t care.

After a few rings, she picked up.

_“Rogue! Oh my God, I’m so glad you called, I was starting to go crazy! I left you like, a gazillion texts, where are you?”_

“Interstate.” Scott said, “I can’t give you an actual number, I just know where we’re going and that’s it.”

_“Scott? Is Rogue with you? Did you guys... did something happen?”_

“No. Everything’s fine. She’s here, she’s resting. Kitty says hi.”

Rogue half-smiled and half-waved.

“Rogue says hi back.”

_“I don’t know if this is the best time, but...”_ she lowered her voice, _“Jean’s been really upset. She’s been raiding the fridge for Logan’s leftover beer and hasn’t left her room in like, two days.”_

“I was just about to get to that. I’ll give you an actual address when I acquire it, just like I said, but for now, just wanted to say, everything’s...”

He felt a feathery touch on his arm on the gear shift. Rogue gave him an assuring squeeze.

“_Everything’s what, Scott?”_

“Everything’s going to be alright. We’ll make it. So spread the word. Has Logan checked in yet?”

_“Nuh-uh. Nobody knows where _he _is. He’s like that.”_

“Yeah, he is.”

_“I’m so glad to hear you’re okay. Things are quiet here, except for like, Jean, but... I guess that is to be expected.”_

“Yeah. How are the others?”

_“The prof’s been quiet. Mr. McCoy says he’s just too busy with Cerebro, but... nobody’s buying it. Other than that, everybody’s sort of... living. It’s been quiet since you’ve been gone.”_

Scott stole a glance sideways. Rogue appeared her normal self, cold and distant, but her hand, warm, told him something else.

“That’s what we all have to do.” He said, “Until later, Kitty. Take care, okay?”

_“Sure. Can I call you on this number?”_

“Yeah, sure. My cell’s gone anyway. Long story. Later.”

_“Later, Scott.”_

He hung up and gave Rogue her phone back. Her hand lingered on his arm, as if afraid to let go. He couldn’t take his hand off the wheel, but instead, he shifted his arm. She let go immediately, but before she could retreat, he managed to capture her hand. He intertwined his fingers with hers and squeezed tight, as if to say, as he always tried to say, I’m here. I’ll never let go.

It wasn’t much, he knew. But it was just about enough to get them where they were going.


	5. World Deafening Eclipse

She saw him grow weary the further they went. Said she didn’t mean for that to happen and offered whatever help she could give. 

* * *

He pulled over by the curb and got out. Brief, sharp chill of the night air, tired with the hours behind and oddly numbing. She took the wheel and watched, from out the corner of her eye, as Scott arranged his limbs in a disturbing alignment, each part secured precariously on some edge or protruding surface, balanced only by miracle and his willingness to pressure his body into passivity. A single, miniscule movement would spell the end of whatever in-out, rise-fall, irregular sleep he hoped to get. But after a while, he drifted, feeling that they were moving, but his soul was quickly falling behind.

He slipped into dream and left her there, hands on the wheel.

* * *

They moved through the world, one and yet separate, not touching what was outside at all. It was as if the world had ended and they, only occupying a small portion of the it, didn’t move through but moved as the world.

Maybe, she thought, while they were driving this endless road, the world had already ended and this road to nowhere was all that was left of everything that once was. They could exist. Without sin, without guilt, without any burden chained to them, pure and free. With each other.

Of course, that’d be like, impossible, not with her... erm, condition. No. Wait, what?

Kitty’s thoughts. Eggshells around the term.

That wasn’t it at all, she knew.

Oh, do you, meine schwester?

_Not you. Not now._

* * *

As he slept soundly, waking up every once in a while and looking around, showing something resembling actual consciousness and returning to his state of half-sleep, she navigated them through the path illuminated by the headlights, coursing through it like a small, insignificant yet fatal piece flowing with the river. It wasn’t unlike how he had seen mud and blood mingle and flow through the chaotic, invisible basin formed on the rough ground, but the rain always came and... no. Who?

Erik Magnus. For a moment there, just for the barest fraction of a second, she was a small boy in Poland, looking at the ground in the middle of a concentration camp, his mind focusing on the most irrelevant of details to keep the absolute reality surrounding him, out.

A memory, lurking beneath the awareness of Erik-by-Rogue, something connected. A loose string. Something she remembered, something that had happened. To her? She wasn’t sure.

But was there a difference, anyway? How could she ever claim that she, the Rogue, whoever she was or had been, existed anymore? She had had so many names, lived so many lives that even if at one time it might have been possible to retrieve some central piece, some core part of herself, she was now lost. Consumed by the lives of others that she had stolen, kept away in herself. Secrets, regrets and all the pieces that made them who they were, now only a small part of the monolithic whole of the Rogue. Was there really a difference in whether or not it had actually been her in that death camp, looking at the water and trying to think of some happier thing, trying to imagine it into being something other than what it was?

It had been _her. _She knew the intimate, seemingly insignificant, infinite details of it. It might as well have been the Rogue standing there, looking at the water.

And now, to think about this little memory, jarred loose by the presence of little lost Erik... no. Too dramatic. Hank McCoy’s thoughts on the subject, no less true, just less hers.

So, in the end, it was her who remembered, her who actually had lived through the experience of being dragged by two burly guards into a large, large house that she remembered being very afraid of. The rain howling outside and the strong arms of the white-clad beasts of men carrying her, kicking and screaming, away from her father and into what would become her life.

The face of sniveling little Pietro, shy and scared like he always was, hiding behind her father’s legs, skinny little fingers gripping hold of his pants.

And the worst thing, the absolute low point in all of this wasn’t that her father had just casually cast her aside. No, far from it – it was that deep down, she knew that he was doing the right thing. She had harmed him and that little momma’s boy way too many times for her father to ever trust her with anyone. He was right – she needed to be controlled.

But this realization was too deep, too buried under all of her conscious protesting and her anger. Inside, she was taking it out on herself, because she believed that they were all right.

Many years ago, in the cold corner of the asylum cell, listening to the thunder lumbering on in the background, Wanda Maximoff cried herself to sleep.

Now, on the wheel of the Scott Summers’ car, listening to his breathing and the rumbling hum of the engine, the Rogue was struggling to keep a grip on her reality.

Oh, what’s the matter? Too much for you?

Vicious focus of Jean’s thoughts, fresh as it had been in the bathroom and the mirror shards. Full of sick pleasure.

Watch out for the road, kid!

Instant flash of Logan’s thoughts, his presence, as well as his memories a jumble of the half-forgotten and half-perceived, allowing her only half a consciousness.

The road spread out before her as her arms froze on the wheel, gripping it tightly and securing it into a singular, straight position. The horizon expanded, moving to all sides and becoming, suddenly and inescapably infinite. The night-time sky morphed into a frantic transitioning of various times of day, the sun appearing and disappearing constantly. Flashing through both sides of the road, signs, twisted, meaningless, dream-material and illegible.

_Stop..._

Oh come on, that the best you can do? How did you ever get to earn Scott’s respect? You’re made of porcelain!

_Shut up._

The irregular lines on the road, twisting in spirals, the concrete bucking and uncoiling from where it was wrapped up, hills and pitfalls, canyons and vales.

Pulse. In her temples.

War drums.

* * *

She had to stop. She had to stop the car. She just had to stop the fucking car. She just had to stop the fucking car. Just stop the car. Stop the fucking car. Stop the car. Stop.

Many years ago, the eye-blink memory of Kurt Wagner informing the infant that something was very strange about his hands, in that, he seemed to have less fingers now.

Now, the voice of Jean Grey, shifting tone and becoming the voice of many others but uniting them all under the obvious, snide overtones of Wanda Maximoff. Both-by-Rogue, All-by-Rogue, none by her and none by her side.

_Focus! Focus, goddammit!_

I never truly understood why it had to be you that he looked at but never saw that you were looking long before that. Was it his goodness that entertained you? His still-preserved, total and obvious innocence to affection directed towards him? Was that what drew you in? Or was it his insecurity? His brave, careless front desperately trying to mask the control freak underneath?

_Shut up, you’ll kill us both! I can’t-_

The road. There? Yes.

No.

Yes again. No again. Blinking in and out of existence, the road and the no-road, one and none.

Where were they headed to?

Vague awareness of her foot on the gas pedal, slowly pushing further down. Adding speed.

_What is this..._

Pietro’s thoughts, faster than her speed of comprehension, slowing down for an instant, an eternity for the echo, for her to understand:

A little speed won’t kill you.

_No! No!_

Panic.

So easily you break. You are weak! You always were, never the daughter I envisioned you to be, never like your mother... well, whoever she was. Never like me!

_Leave me alone, momma. You’re not even my real momma, so shut the fuck up and leave me be._

Watch out for that turn!

Instant clarity of, of all others, Lance’s thoughts brought the road back for about three seconds, just about enough to see that she was headed towards the roadside railing in an easy, almost relaxed turn. She turned the wheel, barely making it, before the incessant chatter returned.

You can’t take it, you little

Like, what’s your problem, if you couldn’t drive

No! Not like that! Not like that!

A car is just a machine and that

Metal within it can twist and bend and become an external ribcage to tear flesh because flesh is

The flesh is weak and it always has been I’m the best at what I

Disappear disappear disappear disappear disappear

No friends no life no identity no cool no props no nothing and I can’t

Bada bing bada boom that’s the spirit

* * *

The car picking up speed, rushing through the road, like a bullet intent on finding its mark.

* * *

_One way out of this. I gotta warn him. He has to stop me._

Somewhere in base reality, Rogue tried to open her mouth, but found that she couldn’t. Her teeth were clenched together and something was keeping her from speaking. She could feel ghostly hands, psycho-somatic representations of the echoes, holding her jaw and hands and foot in place. Echoes of her echoes, keeping her from acting.

In her head, she was screaming against the tide.

_No! No! No! No! Not like this please not like this not him you have no right you have no right to do this to him don’t do this_

A momentary clarity. No turn, but something in the distance. Maybe a motel, maybe a building of sorts?

Her hands were moving by themselves, slowly turning the wheel in a slight, fatal angle towards that object, whatever it is.

A scream, vibrating in her throat but not getting through her lips.

The shadow of their final destination, fast approaching.

* * *

_Let me! Just let me! I never asked anything of you, anything! I always took what you had to dish out, always lived as you wanted me to do, I never once asked anything! So just let me! Just let me warn him, let me give him a chance, please, he hasn’t done anything, he’s innocent, all he wanted to do was help me! All he ever did was to help me, please, oh please just let me warn him!_

_He doesn’t deserve any of this!_

* * *

Two seconds to impact.

* * *

Everything slowed to a crawl as Rogue desperately gave the wheel the whirl of her life, the phantom limbs of echoes slipping off of her. Her awareness exploded and everything, every single thing came rushing back in. Her fingers, one by one, sliding off of the smooth surface of the wheel as it turned. As her grip slipped, she felt her body slide over, limbs flailing, her hand bouncing off the dash.

The screech of tires, echoing, fading in. 

* * *

One second to impact. 

* * *

The last of the echoes shirking away from her panic, she saw where the car was headed to as a singular snapshot, as if awareness of time had been stripped away; as was movement, sight and direction and all that was left was this still image of a convenience store, one of those roadside places, still open at this time of day.

Her throat loosened and with all she had, with every fiber of her being, she screamed. A world deafening howl let loose through her lips and she poured every single iota of will, desire and life into that singular, overwhelming, absolute scream.

_“Scott!”_


	6. Shielded by Death & Suspended in Light

When it all happened, she didn’t feel much. Didn’t mean to feel any of it, but she couldn’t help feeling most of the details. 

* * *

The car spun underneath her, whirling and as if by someone else’s touch, flipped over. It landed hard, the metal groaning as it twisted and bent. The windows shattered. Glass shards cut into her skin, shedding her blood, giving her more grounding in base reality.

Bounced off the pavement, shrieking, flipped again, the world rising from below them in a circular motion before flying, in a neat, silent, suspended arc and crashing down once more. Her teeth rattled in her jaw, one broke and filled her mouth with the sickly-sweet taste and sickening, razor-sharp pain. As they bounced, she felt the seatbelt rattling in it’s place, precariously holding her body firmly in place.

Somewhere in the distance, beneath the moaning of the car and the clanging and the crashing, Scott was shouting something.

* * *

The seatbelt detaching, torn from where it was secured by force.

Her body, flung forward, met the dashboard and she was held in place by the car bouncing slightly in place as it tore into the building. Spare pieces of debris came flying in, glass, wood and that plastic windowpane stuff that reminded her of Caldecott’s stores, off of which she would get sweets when she ran and get caught. Just like those.

The smell of moist Mississippi air.

Her arm, hitting the ceiling and pushing out through the now-broken windshield.

The feeling, far and wee, of something bending that arm the wrong way.

* * *

Silence. Debris settling. The wreck complete.

* * *

She found herself in the white room again, only this time, she wasn’t alone. In fact, she could feel that her secure, little white room’s walls were now transparent and every one of them could see her. She felt naked to their watchful eyes; and in that instant, she was, too, naked as the day she was born and surrendered to their attention.

She stood there, bared.

She knew what they wanted.

* * *

Scott felt glass shards and something even sharper dig into his hand as he tried to sift through the wreckage, in frantic search. Two of his fingers, broken, sent shockwaves through his body, joined in by several cuts all across him, a few ribs that he felt very intimately and something very, very cold in his right leg. He had taken the brunt of the impact, but all the cuts and bruises and possible slipped disks aside, he had lost his glasses.

“Fuck! Rogue! Talk to me! Are you okay!? Where are my glasses!? Anybody out there? _Fuck! _Rogue, come on, where are my glasses? _Rogue!”_

* * *

Someone calling her name, in the distance. Could it be... no. She didn’t even know if he had made it.

Besides, this wasn’t the time. She felt that whatever she said, whatever statement she made right then and there would make all the difference in the world. Suspended in light, she had to say something to those that wouldn’t let her go. Every persona, every single life, assembled, scrutinizing her, made her feel that if she slipped up or said all the wrong words, she’d be lost forever.

She heard her own voice, reciting her thoughts to the echoes assembled and for a moment, she wasn’t in the car at all.

Had it not been for the distant awareness of being there, she might have forgotten about it entirely.

* * *

Spare visor in the glove compartment. His hands fumbled through the car, suddenly unfamiliar to him and all the blindness exercises in the world couldn’t compensate for how much the terrain he knew had changed. He couldn’t judge anything by anything, all he needed to do was to feel around for it. His hands digging through the unfamiliar shape, broken fingers letting him know they were there, he kept shouting.

“Somebody call an ambulance! Somebody! Rogue, are you alright!? Rogue, speak to me, come on! Fuck, anybody!?”

Darkness above, below, around. Inside. 

* * *

Reciting her thoughts to them.

_Look. I know that I’m a piece of shit. I’m utterly and completely worthless. This’d be my type of end, really. Reckless driver on a suicide run to the nearest building. That'd be me. _ _I don’t mind._

_No, really, I don't. Either that or some pathetic, bathtub slit-wrist. That’s the kind of end trash like me deserve. There is no reason for me to be alive. There is no reason at all._

_But I’ve come this far... however far it is._

_I made it through everything and it was all because of him. He’s here because of me. For all I know, he’s lying dead right next to me and it’s all because of me. Had it not been for me, he’d not be here._

_What I’m trying to say is: not him. Please._

_He’s only ever done right by me and he doesn’t deserve this. He cares. He understands. He wants to do good for this world, however small this good may be and he wants to believe that he can succeed. He can, I know that he can. I can’t do any of that. I only steal, rob and take, and nothing good ever comes of me. But he... he’s different._

_He’s different._

* * *

Sound of sirens, closing in. Hope rising in him as he struggled with the latch, pulling at it with clenched teeth and broken fingers. Screaming out his rage at the latch, keeping the crucial thing to him, his sight, away from him.

Helplessness, absolute, setting off the feeling of being a cripple. Unable to even see.

Unable to save her.

* * *

_You see, I didn’t push Mystique off that gazebo because I felt she had wronged me. I didn’t push her out of some sense of justice, or to make her pay for what she did. I did it, because inside, I couldn’t handle that she was right about me, and had always been right._

_I’m just a tool to be used. I am useless without others to steal from. I’m weak._

_But not with him._

_With him, it’s different. I’m better, stronger. I feel like I can take on the world, as long as he’s by my side. That’s more than anyone has ever made me feel. That’s more than anything else, and it’s all I have._

_I never asked much of you, just that you let me breathe. Now, I’m not even asking for that._

_If only one of us is going to make it, let it be him._

_I’ll gladly die if I know he’ll live. Just disappear. I’m gone, and he’s still there. If it’s going to be like that, I’ll do it._

_Because in the end, he gave me more than I could ever ask for, and it’s time to give something back to him._

* * *

Finally. Blessed, red, monochrome vision. Scott blinked a couple of times to adjust his sight. He couldn’t quite see, something was awfully bright in the wreck. There was a ringing in his ear and a sense of misdirection, he couldn’t quite place anything. Visual aid was helping him less and less, as his head was starting to spin.

Blindness exercises. Ambient noises to guide him.

Handcuffs clicking against leather and cloth, the subtle, almost inaudible thud of a nightstick. Shoes logging over hard wood floors and the swishing movement of rain-resistant cloth.

Flashlight upon them, scanning the wreck. More sirens in the distance, closing in.

“Son, you alright?” a voice came. Old, probably forty or so years old, and overweight.

“Yeah, I’m fine! But Rogue, she’s...”

“Holy shit... hey, where’s the ambulance?”

A voice, younger, softer and cracking at certain parts of speech.

“They’re almost here, sir, half a minute away.”

“Let’s see to your friend.”

Footsteps, coming closer.

“No, don’t touch her!” Scott shouted.

“I’m just gonna...”

“Not bare skin! Please!”

“What the hell...”

Ugh, as if his entire situation wasn’t bad enough.

“Look, just do as I say, and tell everyone that’s gonna handle this wreck not to touch her skin, you understand!?”

His stomach was churning.

“She a mutant or something?” the cop asked.

“Will you tell them if I say yes?” Scott said, his voice almost begging.

“Not ‘less she requires special treatment.”

“They’re here, sir!”

Silence.

“Jones!” the one near the car called, “Tell ‘em that the girl’s not to be touched. No skin contact. She’s a mutant, this fellow here tells me that it’s dangerous!”

Scott breathed a sigh of relief, however short-lived. 

* * *

Silence in the white room. Rogue stood, in what she knew to be the line separating life from death. Both sides equally dark, both sides equally abysmal and her small white room wouldn’t withstand a fall into either, but she couldn’t stay balanced on the line forever.

Swaying from side to side.

* * *

With wires and tubes sticking out of her, he found that it was impossible to tell where each one went in. She was half machine and half all he knew, her blood-soaked skin pale white and her streaks clinging to her forehead. Her lips halfway open by the tube inserted in her lungs to help her breathe; and her hand, pierced by the IV and the monitor, limp, by the gurney.

“Rogue!” Scott tried to keep up with them, but his right leg, pierced on impact by what used to be the side of the windshield, wasn’t holding up his weight. Muscle and tendon damage, he couldn’t walk, and the paramedic supporting his weight wouldn’t help him reach her.

She wasn’t breathing.

“Damn you, move!” he said to his crutch, “I want to go there!”

“Listen, we can wait for another one, it’s bad enough without you crowding it!”

“Either you move...” Scott said, placing one hand on his visor, “Or I’ll pull this off and fry you where you stand. Your call.”

“Fucking muties...” he sighed and started to move in the direction of the ambulance.

“Oh, just move already!”

* * *

The line was losing its cohesion. It wouldn’t hold for much longer and directly below was the abyss, she knew. There was one question still holding sway over her, one question holding the point on which she stood, leaning over to the side of death more each passing second.

_Why live?_

Was there an inherent value in living? Did life offer her something that she considered to be irreplaceable? What was there in life that could possibly make it worth all the other things she’d have to put up with the moment she started drawing breath again?

Why put up with the constant interruption of echoes, the persistent deterioration of her condition? What was there in life that could possibly make them recede, make her focus, make her a bit like herself again?

_Why live?_

Would she be living for something, a purpose or a belief in some kind of ideal? Would she be living for a goal, something to look forward to? Would she be living for a feeling, a moment, a sensation, something, anything from her past that made her feel at peace?

_Why live?_

To see him again. 

* * *

Shielded by Death and suspended in light. In her white room, protected from the pain and from consequence. From truth and reality. Distant and safe.

All the echoes that once scrutinized her mercilessly, as if satisfied, moved in unison and closed in. Rogue shook in fear, her body giving a jolt. Tense muscles sprung and she convulsed for a second.

Abject panic when the echoes’ hands bid her to lie down.

It wouldn’t be easy, they were at least honest about that. There’d be pain. Agony, unlike she’d ever known before. And they wouldn’t leave. They’d never leave her, never. It wasn’t because they didn’t want to, they did. They had never been malicious, they had never meant her harm. Never. And they’d be there, they said, when she woke up to the agony. Always by her side.

And so would he, she knew.


	7. Every City is a Prison

Brief moment wherein she said, to herself mostly, that she had meant it. Every word. 

* * *

She opened her eyes to blinding light and the sharp air in an enclosed space. The feeling of plastic and white, cheap wood in the room, as well as that of rough bed sheets and metal edges. Something in her mouth, choking her, going into her. She gagged, and felt it being pulled away.

Sounds now. First and most prominent, Scott’s voice, tearing through the hum of the engine and other, faster, sharper, whispering, shrieking noises.

“Rogue! You’re okay, you’re alright! Thank God...”

Voices of others, garbled gibberish, undecipherable.

Then, touch. The one sense that she couldn’t employ to its full potential and therein she found the agony the echoes had spoken about. Cuts on her face, slid disk on her neck, broken arm twisted in an impossible angle, fingers broken, teeth missing... contusions, concussion, maybe even a skull fracture and each and every one of them seemed to be burning, as if doused with acid. She clenched her teeth and whimpered. Agony, yes, absolute and there, making her wish she’d have less grounding by now.

“Look at this...” a voice she didn’t recognize.

“That’s just impossible. How is she healing that fast?”

Blinding, white-hot pain white-washing all else.

“Is this her... y’know, mutant power?”

“Yes.” Scott lied.

Why was he lying now?

Too much pain to care. Too much pain to see through.

* * *

But a whisper was all she needed. She needed to know he was there. This need was absolute and irresistible now, she had to. Right fucking now, damn it. She needed the colors of grey to fill her world and wash out the red, the white and the blinding. Her hand moved, her fingers expanding, reaching out for him. Hoping he’d see, hoping he’d still be there.

The feathery touch of his hand sliding into hers, their palms touching. The colors of grey, flooding.

Whisper in her ear. Cracking, strained voice wheezing through clenched teeth.

“I’m right here.” 

* * *

Some part of him, the logical side, knew that he was supposed to keep it together. He had to keep a level head in case she was in no shape to. His assessment of the damage he himself had sustained was very, very easily discerned: two left, one right rib broken. Upper right leg pierced, through-and-through by metal. Lacerations on his face, cuts and one persistent cheek wound, close to his lips, with a small glass shard still stuck in it. Two fingers, index and ring, broken on his right hand. Spinning head, nausea. Concussion, definitely.

Instant and temporary catharsis.

Inside, he was screaming. He was shouting with all his might and in impotent rage that he wasn’t made of steel. He was just as made of glass, just as breakable as any one of us and that he couldn’t take everything. That it was all too much, the trauma of it all, the relentless, merciless tide of events that had swept him to the shore of this desperate moment. Shock, raw, there, insistent, overtaking him. Setting him high so that when he came to realize what had just happened, it’d break him all the more.

Thoughts about her, breaking through. Revealing his need.

How much he depended on her presence, how much he counted on her. More than she ever knew, more than she could ever imagine. In that maddening moment, she, of all things, was his anchor in the world. He didn’t have a white room. He had no place that would offer him sanctuary in his own mind. He was bare to the purity of his own thoughts, facing reality and not shirking from it, but aching under the weight of it.

Truth underneath the unraveling tapestry. His truth, now hers. Made theirs.

He didn’t withhold his touch, not because he wanted her to feel better. Not because he was careless, or he wanted to make a point of it to others. There was no pretense, no thought in these simple gestures, these colors of grey he shared with her.

He wanted her to understand. He wanted her to hear him, to know him, to see him, as he was, free of all masks and stripped to his most intimate. He wanted her to look at him without any illusions and tell him, she understood. She understood all the things that he couldn’t express; the nameless, wordless things inside of him that he couldn’t describe or put into words. Every moment of his past, every single thought he had ever had. He wanted her to understand.

And to understand her, in turn.

This was his truth. Now hers.

Made, by them both, theirs. 

* * *

Tears breaking through the pain. Voices in the background, the head-splitting shriek of the siren, wailing through the calm darkness and the ambient hum. She looked at him, barely holding onto the last vestiges of her consciousness as the rest of her wounds ached their last. Smiled.

The last thing she saw was him, breathing a sigh of relief and hanging his head, tired.

* * *

She dreamt of him, well and uninjured, standing by her in the white room.

“You’re here.” She said.

“For you.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you know? Haven’t you figured out who I am by now?”

“You’re not Scott.”

“I’m so sorry.”

The room was slowly shifting, becoming her room in her Aunt’s place, in Caldecott. Hard wood floors and wooden walls infected the white. Wool rug, elliptical and pale blue, worn from years of a child crying on it, underneath her feet. A cross on the east wall, and a picture of a pilgrim family on the Oregon Trail, framed in rosewood.

“So, what happens now?” Rogue asked. Felt that it was different this time. Different than all the other times she had dreamt of him.

“That depends. Did you mean what you said?”

A bed. Forming out of nothing, out of the safety she had built for herself and bringing with it all the memories of jeopardy. That fucking bed. Springs squeaking, one slowly eroding the mattress to stab her in the foot someday soon. The pillow - stained, old. Bed sheets - flowers, faded. The feel of it, the familiarity of every crack, every crevice, every single thing about it, came rushing back.

And there he was, ill-fitting to the scenery, standing there like he didn’t know what to do.

“Ah never thought Ah’d say this, but... yes. If there’s anythin’ that Ah haven’t done, Ah don’t think Ah can do ‘em now. Don’t suppose Ah can go back an’ change it all.”

“No.”

“Ya wanna know what the worst of it is?”

No response. She pretended that he did.

“_Ah know everything._”

His arms, around her, safe and warm. Unreal and cold. His skin, sliding against hers, breath on the nape of her neck. The knot in her chest, suddenly hacked to pieces as she sighed awake.

* * *

Sterilized confines of a hospital room. Nondescript, copied off of hundreds of other rooms in the building and disturbingly orderly. The scent of linoleum and some unidentified thing. She looked to her side. Her clothes, or whatever was left of them after they’d been torn and soaked in blood. On her, the hospital gown, and the sudden rush of cold air reminding her just how naked she was underneath. And why shouldn’t she be, after all, the blue fur... no. Hank McCoy’s thoughts.

So, not out of the woods yet.

She threw off the covers, feeling strong enough to move. In fact, checking her body for bruises, she saw that she _was _quite strong. Logan’s healing factor.

Cold tiles under her bare feet. Shiver.

She went to the window and pulled the blinds to the side a little bit. High noon, or right after, blinding. The sight of buildings, stacked up against one another, stretching in all directions. Cars coming and going, people, small from where she stood, following their lives’ trails. The city.

_So, we made it._

Of course you did. Did you ever doubt?

_A little late in the game to change up, momma._

* * *

She held the gown as together as she could and walked out of the room. The corridor expanded to both sides, both the same. As if she was standing right by the mirror and seeing both reflections as separate worlds, that old feeling about a mirror-world on the other side of the reflective glass. She heard the hum underneath the silence, the grumbling heart of the hospital, beating.

She chose right, as Kitty seemed to favor that direction and went on a search for someone who knew the lay. Nurse, caretaker, someone who had been to the hospital enough times to know where anything was. Double doors ahead, with the button rigged to them, pale blue, inviting her to press it. She did.

The doors opened, each going in the opposite direction of the other and she saw the assembled nurses and doctors, the hustle and bustle of the hospital. White coats and torquoise scrubs, galoshes and latex gloves, noise in the air and the worker bees trying to save the rest of the populace, or at least help them in some way. Rogue felt so small, so insignificant and so wrong, just standing there, one hand behind her back, like a complete fool, gawking at the scene.

A nurse, who inadvertedly put her hand on Rogue’s shoulder, causing a brief surge of information to invade her newly-waking mind, asked in a voice that broke easily due to that accident three years ago with a kitchen knife and a bad fall, “Can I help you, dear?”

“Nah. Ah’m fine, Harriet. Ya know where Ah can get some info?”

Shock on her face at the mention of her name. Fear, discernible, real and urgent, looking back at Rogue.

“Oh, Ah’m sorry... you jus’ touched me back there, that’s why.”

“What...”

“And don’t worry.” Rogue said, “James’ll be fine. Kids always find their way. Ah found mine. If Ah can do it, anyone can.”

Rogue moved down the hall and left Harriet there, staring after her.

* * *

There was a receptionist with a very brightly-colored, floral-patterned dress and a very sharp, bright blue gaze, who pointed out to her what room Scott Summers was in, after inquiring as to her relation. She said sister, but knew that the woman wasn’t buying it – and she didn’t even intend on trying to sell it. But, noticing her stripes and quite possibly her annoyed look, the receptionist gave Rogue no trouble and surrendered the room number. A half-hearted thank you later, she was on her way.

Didn’t take her long to locate it. Scott-by-Rogue and his spatial awareness helped her.

* * *

He wasn’t as broken as she thought and feared he would be, recalling snippets from the accident. His arm was in a sling and his hand in a cast, he had small bits of band-aids and a very large bandage on his head. He looked like he had been taped back together from scratch. He had his visor on, so it was impossible to tell if he was awake or asleep. She had that feeling, that paranoid little feeling that he was looking at her, watching her every move.

She moved in, pretending that he was watching. She might as well have been naked then and there, bare as the day she was born. Knew that he didn’t see her, but through her instead.

She might as well have been naked, yes... but no. She couldn’t. Instead, she approached the bed, walking almost on the tips of her toes and got close enough to hear him breathing.

A voice startled her.

“You care a lot for him, don’t you?”

Rogue turned. Behind her, a woman. White business suit. Perfect, pale skin enhanced by her blue shirt. Straight blonde hair, perfect, pink lip-gloss smile and bright blue orbs looking at her through thick, black-rimmed glasses. Gray heels with red bottoms clacking on the linoleum floor and perfect grace in every movement.

“Oh,” she stopped halfway to Scott, as if she had only then noticed Rogue standing there, “Haven’t introduced myself, have I? Sorry.” She held out her hand, “Emma Frost.”

Rogue shirked from it.

“Ah don’t shake hands.” She said.

Brief twitch of a smile, almost observational. Mild amusement emanating from her.

“I was expecting that.”

She took out a pair of blue satin gloves and put them on. Then, she held out her hand. Rogue took it.

“See, that wasn’t so hard.” Emma Frost said.

“You’re...”

“Yes, I am _the _Emma Frost. President, founder, funder, teaching faculty and so on of the Academy of Tomorrow, pleased to make your acquaintance. And you are..?”

“Ah’m Rogue.” She said.

Another twitch-smile.

“You don’t remember, do you?” Emma Frost asked.

Rogue didn’t say anything.

“Suit yourself. Now, I was actually expecting you two to be in my office about two hours from now, but I see that you might be a while.”

“What’s this about?” Rogue asked.

“The conditions of your enrollment, of course. What else?”

“How did you even know we were here, anyway?” Rogue asked, “Not like Ah see you watchin’ the roads.” A bit of Logan in her voice.

Emma Frost gave sideway glances to the room, ensuring that they were alone. She moved in closer to Rogue.

“I’m a telepath. I just heard your thoughts, or rather, the chaos they made. I came as soon as I could and all had to do, was to follow your trauma. Truth be told,” she said, reclining, “I can barely stand your presence. So much chaos in your mind, so many voices.”

“Yeah.” Rogue said, “But Ah’m used ta it by now.”

“You don’t have to be. I can help you.”

“Help me how?”

“Help you learn to deal with it. Help you control them. Help you not let them control you.”

Rogue looked over her shoulder to the still-sleeping Scott. Met his eyes that she imagined were looking at her.

“Can you help him?”

Emma Frost cast a little glance at Scott.

“He has to heal on his own.”

* * *

After Emma Frost left, Rogue was left with Scott. Not wanting to disturb his rest, despite seductive advice from Jean, she tiptoed around the bed, checking his wounds. Each one of them, even beneath the bandages, carried a piece of her. Her responsibility, her guilt. She felt that she had served to create this little work of injury and pain.

Hers, made his. Theirs now.

She wanted to lie next to him, to feel him by her side as she had during those lonely nights by the roadside, but couldn’t. Too much bare skin, too much of the thing she needed to feel him against. Too much of what she wanted. Instead, she pulled up a chair and sat there, watching him.

She wondered, briefly, if they’d be alright. If they’d be free from everything that had kept them under lock and key this time. Outside, the city was waiting for him to heal, waiting for him to wake up. Waiting for them to walk it.

She wondered if they’d find their way, because, in the end, every city was a prison, keeping its inmates secure by way of invisible guardians looming over them at every turn, never allowing them a moment’s peace.

But now, her peace was in this room, lying broken in a hospital bed, and all she could do was to watch and pray he would heal soon.


End file.
